MB and Others
Having recently gone through the hasstle of gettingg rid of XP (SP3) Pro, all ye out there in "Windows XP" land, remember that; if you decide to stay with Microsoft: budget for some decent "System backup software" -
You are remembering to keep the vital stuff on COPIES on either the "Cloud", USB or DVD/CD's in a systematic way.
Slightly less obvious , make sure you export all your bookmarks from IE8 or FF to files that you can "import" back from at a later stage.
Export all your mail contacts to USB *OK the ones you want to keep.if you are using Outlook or the like - I'm talking POP accounts. Gmail etc will be fine.
Record all your passwords: print the list (for temporary use)
If you are using VM do not forget to "Export" you virtual Machines to Seperate HD's.
Make a note of all the relevent Software keys; of application software that you might want to re install like say Office 2007 or other software.
A lot of older Office versions seem to work OK on later versions of Windows.
Think of Photoshop for example that works as an application Win ME to VISTA.
A warning (especialy for those who should know better)
"There be Dragons out here" - For those out there who really want to grab that that last 1.5 Gb from a 60 Gb USB drive PLEASE when extending or deleting a partition and the phone goes, followed by the Door bell and the smoke alarm, go back to what you were doing - WAIT 20 seconds "Re-orentate brain" remember that you were working with "disk 01 and not disk 0" in my case: and proceed with due care and attention.
And for my next trick.
On that trusty USB Stick with all the relevent activation codes: Note a partial activation code with the last five alphanumeric digits missing is unless.
My backup Software unfortunately did not identify the boot partition even after re installation of the operating System. "Its a long and weary road that many feet have trod"
Beware:
CAT III
Edit: With reference to MB, Microsoft have published a security report detailing the relative infection statistices in infections per 1000 P.C's based on the results gathered from the microsoft anti malware app that runs automatically in a limited way as part of the patch tuesday update process.
Its able to identify if a PC does heve some protection in place, but the stats need to be treated with some caution. See the editorial of a well known PC Mag (Beano Fans think of Gnasher )
Last edited by Guest 112233; 21st December 2013 at 21:52.